


Mud Mud Glorious Mud

by Womble1



Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Gen, Mud, School trips, Youth Hostels, more mud
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:08:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28876956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Womble1/pseuds/Womble1
Summary: small mountains can seem massive, and "puddle farts" are funny
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Mud Mud Glorious Mud

There had been mud, and lots of it, a landslide disrupting a road and buildings getting just a bit too wobbly for comfort on the hillside. The location had meant that local authorities just couldn't get there in a safe time frame, so out the Thunderbirds had come. They had done their thing, people evacuated, structures stabilised and enough of a path cleared to allow the local clean up teams to complete their part of the deal. It had been long and messy work, but it was done now, well mostly. John had asked them to do one last stop before heading home. There was a Youth Hostel just the other side of the hill where a group of school children were somewhat marooned. They weren’t in any immediate danger, but it would be a long time before the local crews got to clear a path to them and they were all meant to be picked up by their parents that evening anyway. So John had asked if they wouldn't mind escorting them down and giving them a lift to a car park a few miles clear of the clear up zone for collection. 

That is how it came about that they were now squelching their way down a slippy woodland path with a crocodile chain of excitable 12 to 13 year olds. The brothers were tired, it had been a long day, but this was at least a fairly low impact way to finish off the day. Scott was at the front of the chain, the 3 teachers orbiting him as if drawn by a beacon. Now that Virgil looked at them, they did seem pretty young, newly qualified teachers would be his bet, and they were clinging to Scott like a raft in a storm. It was obvious from this distance that they weren't feeling that confident about the situation and were more than happy to defer to Scotts leadership, Virgil wondered if Scott even realised it was happening, he had probably just taken over on auto pilot, command being his default setting and being too tired to over analyse it. Virgil laughed to himself, as long as the teachers were happy to be led and Scott was happy to lead, it would all work out fine, although the adoration in Miss Brooks eyes might result in her having to be peeled off their illustrious leader once they got to the bottom of the hill. Scott could never understand the over enthusiastic thanks he sometimes got, the world seemed to be full of huggers. Virgil had tried to explain that it had something to do with dimples but Scott had remained stubbornly perplexed, even when Gordon had snorted and mumbled something about slim fit flight suits as he walked past.

Virgil's gaze moved next onto his younger siblings, Alan and Gordon were bringing up the midpoint of the straggly chain of filthy children. The Outward Bounds centre had been equipped with black waterproof suits for all the kids, and the amount of mud on them before they started showed that this was not their first outing. It meant that as Virgil watched from higher up the path, it looked like the blond pair were herding a pack of lumpy muddy bin bags down the hill. The two of them had reached the giggly stage of tiredness and as the pressure was off after the main rescue, they were now being thoroughly entertained by the fart-like noises the mud was making as they traipsed through it. Their giggling was infectious, and rippled out amongst the children around them with each new entertaining “puddle fart” as they had named them. It was another of those occasions when Virgil was reminded how young his siblings really were, but even as he watched he saw Gordon snag a slipping child by the back of the overalls with the sort of fast reflexes only honed by many life or death rescue missions. Maybe the response had been overkill for this situation, the worst the child could have expected was a bruised bum and some embarrassment, but thanks to Gordon even that was avoided, and it did comfort Virgil to see that for all their silliness they were still attentive to the job at hand. He wouldn't have to resort to splitting Alan and Gordon up just yet. But if they kept up the fart jokes all the way home in Thunderbird two then he was not ruling out locking one or both of them in the pod module. If Scott started to give him the “appropriate use of IR equipment” talk, then he could take the pair home in ‘one, and see how much he liked it. 

OK, Virgil was tired too, he could see all the signs in himself, everything ached and his boots seemed to have at least an extra stones worth of mud clinging to them. Somehow he had ended up carrying the battered box of medicines from the hostel, mostly consisting of personal medication for certain kids, and clutch of inhalers all with sticky labels and names scrawled on with a sharpie. They had thankfully left the rest of the supplies and belongings at the hostel to be collected at a later date. He hoisted the box back onto his hip again, making the contents rattle and privately let out a little sulky huff. This was hardly heavy lifting, surely one of his brothers could have taken a turn with the awkward shaped box. He had been stomping along quite nicely, lost in his own grumplings when he realised that he had started to outpace the last of the children. He looked back and realised that the last child was standing stock still at the top of a little slope that he himself had slid down without a moment's thought. The ground was slick with mud and had no obvious footholds, which Virgil guessed was the cause of the child's current uncertainty. Virgil cursed himself for only now piecing together the childs slow pace and the fear that was now clear to see in their eyes. He was reminded how he and his brothers took so much for granted, scrambling down muddy tracks was light relief for them, comparable to a quick trip to the corner shop (although perversely shopping was one of the things that put the fear of god into them). Now that Virgil looked properly, he could see that the child was frozen through terror, her knees had locked into position and she looked like she was holding herself in place through will power alone. He put the box down on a rock and tentatively retraced his steps, careful not to startle the girl much like you would when approaching a wild animal. 

“Are you ok there?” he asked, keeping his voice low and steady. The only response was a squeak. “Would you like a hand getting down?” double squeak and a miniscule head bob. “Ok, lets see what we can do here” he side stepped part way up the slope, wedging his boots into the shifting surface of the mud to try and grip firmer ground below. Once he felt secure enough he reached his hand out to the still frozen girl, bridging the rest of the distance. Virgil knew that the worst that could happen would be an undignified slide and a lot of mud, it wasn't life threatening, but that was logical thinking, he could see that the girl was some way past logical thinking and to her this was a big obstacle. As such he did everything in his power to reassure her and make it clear to her that he was taking her concerns seriously. Laughing at her now would not help matters, pointing out how comparably small this slope was would not help her right now. So he kept things calm, shuffled nearer and caught hold of her hand, still held rigidly at her side. The contact made her start slightly, as if being woken from trance. Her shoulders sunk slightly and her head swivelled to face him, her eyes locking on to his like her life depended on it. Ok, thought Virgil, slightly creepy, but it was a step in the right direction. After some more gentle coaxing he managed to get her edging down the slope to meet him, and she was nearly at the midway point that would see her inching past her rescuer. Here she risked a glance up at the path ahead, where previously her gaze was glued to her plodding feet. It was enough, the heel of her boots skidded in the mud, her knees locked again, compounding the issue and her free hand flailed. Virgil could see all the panic come flooding back even though she was only a short jump from level ground and had only slipped a few inches. He shifted himself slightly to steady his position and caught the flailing arm gently at the elbow. Now she was anchored on each side she seemed to calm down a little bit and they managed to totter down the remaining slope with no more mishaps. Virgil was briefly reminded of hunching over toddler siblings who wanted to explore but still required a helping hand keeping upright. He found himself uttering the same soft words of encouragement, barely aware of what he was saying, but she seemed to respond to the tone if nothing else. 

When her feet hit the more stable ground the girl let out such a big sigh that her waterproof suit almost inflated. For a minute Virgil was worried he might have to deal with tears, but then he caught sight of the determined look on her face. No, this girl was about to declare war on every obstacle between her and home. And quick as a flash she was off, not stopping to see if her rescuer was keeping up, stomping her way through puddles, making a bee line for her classmates, the waterproofs frantically rustling as she went. He snatched up the box and set off after the rapidly departing ball of waterproofed fury, only to nearly collide into her as she stopped suddenly immobile at the top of the next incline. As he was still assessing the situation, she stuck out her arm, not even turning to look at him, beckoning with her fingers, making it clear that she required his hand again - thank you very much, so make it snappy. All this was conveyed without a single look or word, not even a solitary squeak. Well, Virgil knew better than to argue, he shifted the box onto his other hip and took her hand, only for the grip to be returned like a vice. With no further ado the girl started her determined two step shuffle down the slope, barely giving her balance prop enough time to plant his feet. 

“Oh, Ok, off we go then, you’ve got this” that got him a little grunt in reply, so he chalked that up as more progress in the absence of anything else to go on. This obstruction was defeated with no upset and the march continued with as much zeal as before. The whole operation was repeated twice more, still with only one sided dialogue, before they caught up with the rest of the class milling around outside Thunderbird 2. Scott, Gordon and Alan were inside making adjustments to the pod configuration to accommodate them all. The look on the teachers faces when they spotted the pair made it clear that they were feeling suddenly really bad for not having realised the girl was left behind. Virgil put that down to the “Dimple distraction effect” once again. 

“Oh Sophie! You weren't holding the nice man up were you?!” said Miss Brooks, she glanced at Virgil, registered zero dimples, and promptly gave her attention back to Sophie. Virgil sneaked a look at Sophie, and spotted a look of pure disgruntlement at the teachers accusation.

“Not at all, no, Sophie was helping me with this box, that's what held us up,” and he dumped the battered, now slightly soggy, cardboard box into the teachers arms, winked to the child and went off to make sure his brothers hadn't messed up his ‘bird. Sophie gave him a curt nod of thanks, smoothed down the front of her billowing waterproofs and stomped off to join her similarly clad classmates. Virgil didn’t fancy the chances of anyone or anything that tried to get in her way today, she had defeated mountains and there was no stopping her now.


End file.
